Will have five sets of photos that I scanned this morning. My buddy Karl Klein, sent me these from Germany.

First set from top to bottom, left to right:

Display in a Bundeswehr Barracks (Co office)

M-24 Tank "Chaffee" during a movie shooting in Lower Bavaria. A nice toy to play with that I was commanding

Whole crew after the historical parade "100 Years City Rights" in Waldorf, representing the occupation of Waldorf on April 1, 1945

Explaining of the Rhine River crossing in March 1945 to a spectator at the display

Original Jeep in running condition

Leading the column

Leading the convoy in original Jeep build in 1943

At a weekend exhibition commemorating Operation Norwind in Rittershoffen Alsace as 79th Infantry Division

The small rest of our crew in front of an M-4 "Sherman" Tank displayed in Hatten Alsace (guess who is me)!

All the participants of the event, half of them came from England, members of an organization reenacting the 2nd Armored Division

That's the Way!

More of the display

We even have original underwear!

More of the display

We had a tremendous success

All is packed in boxes. I have no where to display it during the year.

My buddy's Jeep marked as a vehicle from the 100th Infantry Division, the unit that occupied Waldorf on March 1, 1945

We get a kick out of the young GIs since they did not recognize these uniforms as American and wondered that the Germans knew so much about them!

Also in the historical display was a German Tank, Mark V "Panther" fromt he Bundeswehr Technical Collection in Koblenz, in running condition

We even got an old original US flag with 48 stars

First, Thank You for sending these photos back....just Super! I can't hardly believe that young GI's do not even know what a WWII uniform looked like...Boy do I really feel old now . I have never liked the modern day American helmets because they look too much like the WWII German helmets, but I realize that is because the Krauts were ahead of the times in helmet design too...it gives better protection for the neck and ears....

Jim

I agree. I don't like modern uniforms. I look at all the uniforms from the 20th century and my faves are still the American GI uniforms from WWII. To me they just looked rugged and the men looked so "cool" in them. That's from a woman's perspective!

I was recently debating the "looks" of American and German WWII uniforms with a Collector in Germany. He said ours were "too plain, and not very interesting", to which I replied: "The money we saved on our 'plain' uniforms was used to buy more "jabos" as our fighter-bombers were called by the Germans. That shut him up!

Jim

Good answer. Who needs frills?

Info and explanations from Karl - mystery solved...

hello marion

i know its been a long time since i have written, its mainly because i am running out of subjects lately due to fact and the distance to the end of ww II is becoming greater and so many participants fade away. we still are running our military historical roundtable and there is always somebody coming up with some interesting news. attached are some photos of which i believe you have asked me before what it could be and i believe i could not answer what it was, maybe the baseplate of a mortar whether german or american i had no idea and i must skip what i answered a long time before. now filing through military weapon photos in the internet i located a good picture of the american 120 mm mortar with a good view of the baseplate and i am quite convinced that this is what the old photo showed. additionally i placed a photo of a painting of the castle of my hometown with adjacent garden ( hortus palatina) and in the background the city.the painting is from the 1500 century.i am still after two photos of a ponton bridge that was built in the first week in april 1945 on the neckar at heidelberg. due to my spinal problems i am kind of hindered and it may take more time but i am determined to locate them.so untill next mail best wishes to all the chards and good luck for the future.

yours truly
karl